I was a bit surprised to find out that relatively few jobs have gone overseas because of payment of wages and benefits. I did think that employees were sucking business dry and literally chasing them out of the nation. Not true at all. Most companies left, not because of employee demands, but because regulations made doing business here impossible at any cost.
I found this out listening to a radio show on Sunday when the most boring of radio is on the airwaves. We used to make wire hangars in this country. The major manufacturers left when regulations made it impossible to make hangars here. They went mostly to Viet Nam. Now the EPA wants to increase the regulations on hangars so that all hangars are made from biodegradable cardboard. This will end imports AND impact the lowly neighborhood dry cleaner who is the primary user of wire hangars.
This follows the lightbulbs and the requirement for refineries to make a fuel that doesn't exist anywhere in the world. It is all a specific design to reduce the US to the industiral level of Pre-Columbian Colombia.